Hello! I am the ConMan and I don’t have a catchphrase. Well, for my first ever blog, I decided I would post my Oscar picks, since this whole website will be basically my opinions on movies and Oscars. And yes, I’m aware this style of picking is similar to eesgooshee, a YouTuber. I guess you can say I’m paying homage to him. So without further ado- My Oscar picks!

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT
WHO SHOULD WIN
I haven’t seen any of these, so I’m going with Time Freak, simply because I like the name.

WHO WILL WIN
I’m going to cross my fingers and say “The Shore”.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
I saw an amazing short at the Chicago International Film Festival called ‘Tick Tock Time Emporium”. Also, I myself made a darn good short called ‘Trick Or Treat. Incidentally, how come there are so many shorts that start with the letter ‘T’ this year?

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
WHO SHOULD WIN
‘The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” Is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen this year.

WHO WILL WIN
Morris Lessmore should win this, but with the short categories, you never can tell.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
I don’t understand why the Toy Story shorts are being tossed by the wayside, especially how everyone agrees on how ‘Hawiaan Vacation is superior to the film it played in front of, Cars 2.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
WHO SHOULD WIN
I haven’t seen any of these either, so I’m going with ‘God is the Bigger Elvis’, again, based off its title.

WHO WILL WIN
‘The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom’ seems more up the Academy’s Alley.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
Uhh..

BEST DOCUMENTARY
WHO SHOULD WIN
I’ve seen a great review of “Hell and Back Again”, so I’m going with that.

WHO WILL WIN
I’m throwing my dice at ‘Paradise 3: Lost Purgatory.’

WHO GOT SNUBBED
Well, uh…

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
WHO SHOULD WIN
I’m going with ‘A Separation, due to the incredibly large amount of buzz it has.

WHO WILL WIN
A Separation is the frontrunner, but then again, that never is a good thing in this category, is it? (cough Pan’s Labyrinth cough)

WHO GOT SNUBBED
‘The Skin I Live In’, ‘The Kid With A Bike’, and ‘In The Land Of Blood And Honey’ all got Golden Globe nominations, but the Academy doesn’t seem to care. Just who is running the Foreign Language Film branch, anyway?

BEST ANIMATED FILM
WHO SHOULD WIN
Since that other movie didn’t get nominated, my favorite is ‘Kung Fu Panda 2’.

WHO WILL WIN
Since that other movie didn’t get nominated, The Academy seems to favor ‘Rango’ here.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
If you look at this snub and Andy Serkis’s snub for ‘Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, It’s clear that the Academy doesn’t like motion capture very much. But if they don’t regard it as animation OR a performance, then what exactly do they think it is? Awkward segue to the Phineas and Ferb movie.

BEST SOUND EDITING

WHO SHOULD WIN
I’m gonna say War Horse, due to how incredibly well the fake sound effects make the war seem ever so real.

WHO WILL WIN
War Horse is the frontrunner, but Hugo could steal here.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
I don’t understand why they didn’t nominate any animated films here. After all, every single sound effect you hear in an animated film had to be created in post-production.

BEST SOUND MIXING
WHO SHOULD WIN
This was a very tough category to call, but I’m going to say… Moneyball.

WHO WILL WIN
I don’t really know if there are a lot of people who know the difference between the two sound categories, so most of the time, the same film wins both. War Horse.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’ and ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ both had a great mix. But I think some of the best sound mixing I heard this year can be found in ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG (sigh.. Alright, let’s get this over with)
WHO SHOULD WIN
‘Real In Rio’ is the more memorable tune, at least in my opinion.

WHO WILL WIN
‘Man Or Muppet’, despite being my least favorite song in ‘The Muppets’ has the best chances.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
‘Lay Your head down, from Albert Nobbs, ‘Life’s A Happy Song’, from The Muppets, and ‘The Living Proof’ from The Help, among others! Okay, okay. Let’s move on.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
WHO SHOULD WIN
As great as the ‘Hugo’ score was, ‘Hugo’ doesn’t have music playing constantly through the film, telling emotions, and most of the time being the only thing the audience heard. The Artist gets my vote.

WHO WILL WIN
Hopefully, the Academy feels the same way as I do. The Artist.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and Kung Fu Panda 2 both had fantastic scores, but hey, at least they get the honor of being “Honorable Mentions”.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
WHO SHOULD WIN
All the Harry Potter movies have fantastic visual effects, but ‘Deathly Hallows: Part 2’ may just have the best of the bunch.

WHO WILL WIN
As great as Potter was, the Academy usually gives this award to films that can be considered “groundbreaking”. This makes ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ the most likely winner.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
Even though I’m not a big fan of ‘The Tree Of Life’, even I have to admit that the effects to create the worlds creation were jaw-dropping. Pirates of the Caribbean also had great effects.

BEST MAKEUP
WHO SHOULD WIN
In Harry Potter, Not only do goblins and no-nosed demons need to be created, but everyone in the battle of Hogwarts has to progressively get wearier. It’s some pretty cool makeup, and It easily gets my vote.

WHO WILL WIN
Even though ‘The Iron Lady’ could steal, I predict that this category will finally make us be able to say “Harry Potter: An Oscar-Winning Franchise”.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
I don’t see why everyone is forgetting about ‘Beastly’, because they did some pretty cool stuff with Alex Petifyer’s gruesome look. Not to be forgotten are ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’ and J’. Edgar’.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
WHO SHOULD WIN
‘The Artist’ had the difficult job of not only creating a fantastic wardrobe of beautiful costumes, but also making them look good in black and white.

WHO WILL WIN
This category is really hard to decide, but I’m gonna say that the Academy recognizes ‘The Artist’s threads.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
‘The Help’ had some fantastic costume design. Not only did it accurately have to portray Jackson, Mississippi, but it also had to give each character an unique wardrobe that gives us fantastic insight into the characters. Other great costumes were in Moneyball, J. Edgar, Tinker Tailor Soilder Spy, and War Horse.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
WHO SHOULD WIN
Like I said before, I’m not a big fan of ‘The Tree Of Life’, but easily the best part of the movie is the cinematography. It tries revolutionary ideas of telling the story through the cinematography. (It doesn’t work, but it’s an interesting idea.)

WHO WILL WIN
All the nominees have great cinematography (at least I assume ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ has: Mom and Dad won’t let me see it.) but the Academy should hopefully lean towards ‘Tree Of Life’.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
When I saw ‘Moneyball’, I thought the cinematography was excellent. I found out later that the film was shot by Wally Pfister, who WON the Oscar last year for ‘Inception’. Not sure why he was ignored this year, but whatever. Shout out to ‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’ and ‘Harry Potter.’

BEST ART DIRECTION
WHO SHOULD WIN
This is close, but I have to go with ‘Hugo’, even though ‘The Artist’ had fantastic production design.

WHO WILL WIN
This is one of the easiest categories to predict. ‘Hugo’.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
Are animated films eligible? If so, I would have liked to see ‘Rio’ here for the stunning portrayal of a stunning city. Also, where is ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’?

BEST FILM EDITING
WHO SHOULD WIN
My personal favorite here is the fantastic flow in Moneyball.

WHO WILL WIN
The Best Picture frontrunner usually wins here. The Artist.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
‘Tinker Tailor Soilder Spy’ had the 2nd best editing of 2011. The 1st is in ‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
WHO SHOULD WIN
Midnight In Paris had a perfect composition of story and dialogue and the result is a masterpiece of writing.

WHO WILL WIN
Midnight In Paris, hands down.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
I don’t understand why everyone is forgetting about Dustin Lance Black’s screenplay for J. Edgar. It was masterfully put together and is seriously underrated as far as screenplays go.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
WHO SHOULD WIN
Moneyball, like Midnight In Paris, was masterfully put together, and it easily gets my vote.

WHO WILL WIN
The Academy will probably favor The Descendants, but Moneyball could steal like second base.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
‘The Help’ is the biggest snub, ‘but Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’ and ‘War Horse’ also had great scripts.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
WHO SHOULD WIN
Berenice Bejo gave a fantastic performance in The Artist. Her rags to riches story and how it contrasts Jean Dujardin’s riches to rags story is, in my opinion, good enough for a Best Actress nod.

WHO WILL WIN
The academy is more likely to favor Octavia Spencer’s sassy performance as Minny Jackson in ‘The Help.’

WHO GOT SNUBBED
Shailene Woodley in ‘The Descendants’ is the biggest snub, but Sandra Bullock in ‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’, Marion Cotillard in ‘Midnight In Paris’, and Emily Watson in ‘War Horse’ all turned in respectable performances as well.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
WHO SHOULD WIN
Max Von Sydow gave an unbelievably good performance as a kind mute who befriends our young hero in  ‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’. Yes with him and ‘The Artist’, this seems to be the year of silence.

WHO WILL WIN
Christopher Plummer in ‘Beginners’ is more the academy’s cup of tea.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
As well as Andy Serkis and Albert Brooks, great performances can be found in Armie Hammer, from ‘J. Edgar’, Ben Kingsley in ‘Hugo’, Peter Mullin from ‘War Horse’, and Alan Rickman in ‘Harry Potter’. And was I the only one who thought Colin Firth was terrific in ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’?

BEST ACTRESS
WHO SHOULD WIN
I am very sad to report that I have only seen one of the nominated performances. But it was a great performance nonetheless: Viola Davis in ‘The Help’.

WHO WILL WIN
The frontrunner for this category seemed to be Meryl Streep (I mean, I’d give her an Oscar just from watching the trailer.) But after her Critics Choice and Golden Globe wins, Viola Davis seems to have the upper hand.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
It’s a shame that Viola Davis is overshadowing Emma Stone, who also gave a fantastic performance in ‘The Help’. Like I said before, Berenice Bejo really belongs here instead of supporting actress. But If I had to pick one person to replace one of the nominees, it would be AnnaSophia Robb in ‘Soul Surfer’.

BEST ACTOR
WHO SHOULD WIN
Jean Dujardin has the incredibly hard task of conveying so much emotion without any dialogue. But he does it, and he does it amazingly well.

WHO WILL WIN
This will be a very tight race between George Clooney and Jean Dujardin. I’m going to cross my fingers and say Dujardin because, not only did he give the better performance, but he also won the Screen Actors Guild.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
One of the biggest snubs this year was Leonardo DiCaprio for ‘J. Edgar’. He gave an amazing performance as a public man who was keeping a lot of things private, not mentioning the fact that he was under a few layers of makeup half the time. There’s also Thomas Horn in ‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’, Owen Wilson in ‘Midnight In Paris’, and the criminally underrated Daniel Radcliffe in ‘Harry Potter’. An Oscar win for him would have been a thank you note to his amazing performances in all 8 movies.

BEST DIRECTOR
WHO SHOULD WIN
Martin Scorsese, even though he’s directing a “kids movie”, still brings an incredible amount of creativity for ‘Hugo’.

WHO WILL WIN
As much as I’d like to see Scorsese surprise us, Michel Hazanavicius is the frontrunner here. Of course, I’d be happy to be wrong.

WHO GOT SNUBBED
How is it that Steven Spielberg, debatably the greatest director of all time, didn’t get noticed for his amazing work on ‘War Horse’? Also, I would have loved to see ‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’s Stephen Daldry get a nod for direction that is both extreme and incredible.

BEST PICTURE
WHO SHOULD WIN
I’m glad to see that ‘Extremely Loud’ is getting some love, but for me this comes down to ‘The Artist’ and ‘Hugo’. Hugo was wonderfully well directed, but the screenplay left something to be desired. ‘The Artist’ on the other hand is a masterpiece from every conceivable point of view. All the Best Picture nominees are great, with one exception. (cough Tree Of Life cough) But it’s the Artist that gets my vote.

WHO WILL WIN
All the nominees stand a chance, but the movie that stands the best chance is ‘The Artist.’

WHO GOT SNUBBED
I’m going to name a handful of films films that are better than ‘Tree Of Life’
The Adventures Of Tintin
Beastly
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
J. Edgar
Kung Fu Panda 2
The Muppets
Soul Surfer

Well, those are my predictions. Thank you for reading.

That’s all, folks!